It took just three days for freshman Marlee Zein to make an immediate impact for the Florida Gators tennis team.
Zein and company opened their 2019 spring campaign in the Freeman Memorial Women’s Tennis Championships in Las Vegas, Nevada. They found success on the singles court notching nine match victories, with Zein responsible for three of those.
Zein started the three-day tournament on a high note after defeating Pepperdine’s Ashley Lahey, who finished the 2018 NCAA Singles Championship as runner-up, in three sets. She coasted in the next two rounds, defeating UCLA’s Taylor Johnson and UNLV’s Aiwen Zhu in straight sets before retiring in the main draw semifinals to focus on Wednesday’s home opener.
“I’m pleased with the way (Zein) competed out there today, and it says a lot about how she has been preparing in practice and in workouts,” coach Roland Thornqvist said in a release. “She played really well from both a physical and mental perspective.”
Though Florida performed well in singles led by Zein and sophomore McCartney Kessler, who won both of her singles matches in straight sets, it struggled to find similar success in doubles play.
The Gators doubles tandems of Sydney Berlin/Kessler, Anastasia Kharitonova/Zein and Tsveta Dimitrova/Ida Jarlskog finished the weekend 2-7. After ending the fall ranked No. 41 in ITA doubles, Dimitrova and Jarlskog opened the tournament with an impressive 6-1 win over UCLA’s Alaina Miller/Johnson but quickly faltered and lost both of their remaining matches.
The only other doubles win came from Anastasia Kharitonova and Zein in their 6-2 victory over UNLV’s Connie Li/Izumi Asano.
Though these freshman accounted for half of Florida’s doubles wins, the inexperience showed in the tandem’s two losses, where it won just one game combined. Florida was also outscored on the doubles court, winning 15 fewer games than its opponents in the nine duos matches.
It wasn’t an ideal start for the Gators, but Thornqvist was content with the positive takeaways from the weekend tournament.
“Our chemistry continues to get better along with our offensive play calling,” Thornqvist said. “These aspects of the game are important, and I think we will continue to see improvement as we get more reps out on the court.”
Florida is back in action for their home-opener today at 3:30 p.m., as they take on the California Golden Bears at the Ring Tennis Complex. Looking back at the takeaways from the fall campaign and this past tournament, Thornqvist is confident in the direction his young team is headed as dual-match play begins.
“Overall we are getting much needed competition,” Thornqvist said, “and although some are struggling, this will definitely be a positive in the long run.”
Follow Victor Prieto on Twitter @victorprieto_11 and contact him at vprieto@alligator.org.
UF coach Roland Thornqvist was pleased with how freshman Marlee Zein played in Las Vegas. “She played really well from both a physical and a mental perspective,” he said.
